Work Text:
He found himself enraptured in the visit of an art piece he'd already seen before. Stuck between whether it was because of the nature of the visits, or the captivating scene depicted within the work.
It was a drawing of twin flames captured in a dance. Setting the world of flora in which it lived in an uproar of ochre and crimson. The composer also made use of less foreseen colors such as turquoise and violet to further emphasize the already composite colors of the flame. The artist seemed to be well versed in the conflation of unlikely elements to construct something betwix the unseen and everything that has ever been. Everything and nothing was composed in the flame.
The trip itself was nothing short of mystifying. A cavernous walk through his memories to a plane he could not name. He could not say if the memory was his at all. But there the painting sat nonetheless, and each time he witnessed it he cursed himself for ever having forgotten it.
It was familiar, as if it contained the past and the future in a synonymous symphony. A harmony of sureness and things undefined. Of cornflowers and poppies both bleeding in the wake. The flame consumed, but it seemed to bloom as well. Relentless but not unforgiving, a wilting core but something forever living.
It reminded him of the lab spun fireplace. It reminded him of times when there was no fireplace at all. It reminded him of when fire was all he knew and loathed. It reminded him of when he had come to love a flame. It reminded him of home. Of the old and the new.
Paintings of forest fires shouldn't have given him a sense of hope. But in the blaze was the understanding that in the throes of despair could the most wonderful flowers be born, for in the face of a flame was his first hand held. Now, in the scorching amber of the future, the fire held his hand. Captured in the warming embrace of scales and embers.
Lucas hated the cold, and in the flames he'd never have to feel it again.
He’d been told to stay away from raging fires in the valleys, but that's where the lilies grew. And how would the new lilies come if the old ones weren't cut first? The old ones weren't any less vital of a piece as the new ones were. They too could be carried in life. But things could not grow if they were bound so tightly without a flame to sever their stems, to carry them from the cold.
At some point in his life he must have come early to this realization, because he found he was drawn to fire, unable to stray away from it without feeling trapped. This painting was one of his many fires, or perhaps a representation of them all.
Perhaps this was a memory intangible. Something amorphous and ineffable like a dream. Perhaps it wasn't a moment at all, but many. A proclivity, a reminder, a deliberately placed lucky charm, a promise.